


Life Outside The Diamond

by maybetwice



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-23 11:45:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9656156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybetwice/pseuds/maybetwice
Summary: Maybe he would have been someone else if something, somewhere had gone differently for him. But Mike Lawson is just an ordinary guy, and Ginny Baker is the biggest star in baseball.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [humdrumbumrush](https://archiveofourown.org/users/humdrumbumrush/gifts).



*

When she first slams the door to her Mercedes behind her, Mike thinks the blonde in the sensible pencil skirt and a pair of _insensible_ stilettos must be a parent he hasn’t met yet. More than a few of his kids show up to practice after school and head home on the bus, or carpool with a few of their teammates. This is San Diego, after all. More than half his team are latchkey kids.

“Practice isn’t over for another forty-five minutes,” he says with his arms crossed when she strides up to him, standing about fifteen feet back from home plate. It’s not good for the kids if their parents get the idea that practice is optional.

“Are you Mike Lawson?” she asks without preamble, shooting straight to her point without pausing to acknowledge him. At his nod, she cuts him off before he can say anything by thrusting out her hand. “Amelia Slater. I’d like to talk to you about an opportunity for your team.”

Whatever Mike was expecting her to say, _that_ wasn’t it. He looks back at the kids and tries to keep his expression neutral. Kids are like emotional bloodhounds. When Mike was served his divorce papers, the kids had known it the instant he stepped on the field. The first sign he gives that something’s wrong and the whole practice will get upended.

“You know, there’s a parent organization you should probably talk to. I’m just the coach.” 

“I already talked to them,” she presses, watching when the kids give a loud shout at a stray pitch that Mike cleans up when it rolls toward his feet. “You look like you have a lot going on today, so I’ll get to the point: Ginny Baker is my client. I’ve been asked to identify a Little League team for her to volunteer with.” 

Mike stops cold, turning his head down toward the woman while he silently replays her words in his head. He’s a perfectly ordinary man with a perfectly average life: he went to college, took an ordinary job in econometrics when he graduated, got married when he was twenty-six, divorced eight years later without kids. 

Baseball has always been important to him, but he hasn’t played seriously since his sophomore year of high school, when his mom moved them out to the desert halfway through the season. Now it’s just a hobby, at best. He plays on his office team and writes a column for a baseball stats blog, and he only started coaching Little League three years ago because he couldn’t stand rattling around his apartment alone after the divorce. And, anyway, it was cheaper than alcoholism or a gym membership.

He thinks of all of that, thinks of what she’s just said to him. Then he laughs, barking and loud. 

“This isn’t a joke,” insists the woman, looking deeply irritated. “But if you’re going to–”

“It’s not that,” Mike interjects quickly, rubbing his hand through his beard so the kids can’t see his face clearly. “But you have to admit, the idea is…”

Her annoyance isn’t any better for that explanation. “It’s not that unusual. The Padres are local, players volunteer in the community all the time.”

“Yeah,” Mike agrees. “But why my team?”

“I’m sorry?” The woman – Amelia, Mike tries to make himself remember – shakes back her hair with an incredulous expression, like she can’t believe he’s actually brought himself to ask that kind of question. That he should be grateful. He has the impression she’s the sort of woman who gets through a lot of life by sheer force of will.

“There are hundreds of Little League teams. Baker could have done this with one of the teams she played on back in her hometown. There are teams closer to the stadium. Hell, there are just _better_ teams out there.”

“And we picked yours,” Amelia explains so slowly that Mike almost laughs, deeply familiar with the tone she’s using. Maybe she thinks he’s a blockhead, and maybe she doesn’t. He just doesn’t really care either way, which is probably an improvement for him. A breakthrough he’d talk over with a therapist, if he’d actually bothered making appointments with the guy his marriage counselor recommended when Mike told him Rachel was divorcing him.

Finally, she crosses her arms and looks out over the field with a curious, unreadable expression. One of the kids gets solid contact with the ball, knocking it forcefully over the pitcher’s head for what’s probably going to end up a triple. Then he flings his bat from his hand and starts running. 

Mike rolls his eyes when the bat narrowly misses the line of kids standing by the third base line.

“Hey, Meers!” he bellows after him, rolling his eyes when the kid skids to a stop at first, looking back at him with a guilty expression. “Cool down, hotshot. You don’t need to hit your teammates to make a triple.” 

Amelia is quiet, watching as play resumes, but Mike isn’t done yet. 

He looks back toward her, adjusts his cap to keep the sun out of his face. “This isn’t some weird photo op thing, is it? Sweep in, sign some autographs, my kids end up as some props for Baker’s do-good press image?”

“The kids will all take home disclosures for their parents to sign.” Amelia frowns when she sees his face, as if this is the first time it’s occurred to her that isn’t actually what Mike might be worried about. Then her whole body seems to soften, her shoulders lowering a little. 

Even her voice is gentler when she says, “It’s not like that. _Ginny_ isn’t like that. You’ll see what I mean when you meet her.”

“Am I going to get to do that before she comes in here and shakes up weeks of practice for my team?” Mike doesn’t really mean it to come out like that, but Amelia laughs. 

“That’s not going to happen, Mr. Lawson,” she says dismissively, turning on her heel as if there’s nothing else to discuss. “I’ll be in touch soon.”

*

Amelia isn’t in touch after that. Not directly, anyway. Mike gets a call on his office phone from her assistant to firm up some details, get a copy of the team schedule. He emails the team parents with some details and manages the kids’ excitement when they inevitably hear the news, even though they’re practically vibrating with excitement by the time she’s supposed to turn up.

It’s a good thing, Mike decides, that he has so much to do getting ready for Ginny that he can’t actually begin to work through his own feelings about it. And what is he supposed to feel about it, anyway? The first woman in the major leagues is going to be his assistant coach, or something. It makes him want to laugh, or maybe vomit from nerves. The only positive to the whole thing is that it’s the first time since the divorce that he’s been too busy to be the same miserable fuck plodding through the motions of his mundane life. 

He can barely focus on his work the day Ginny is supposed to turn up, but he takes a long walk at lunch instead of picking at the leftovers he packed into the office fridge and finally finishes a long-coming report that afternoon.

“You look pale, Mike,” his boss remarks, looking up from her computer when he passes a print copy over to her, drumming his fingers on his thigh. “The report can’t be that bad.” 

It’s not. He reassures her that he’s fine and goes to sit behind his desk, checking and double-checking the time until it’s finally time for him to head over to the field. He’s the first one there, but only by a few minutes before a few of the kids start streaming on, vibrating with anticipation. He’s already decided it’s not going to be a productive practice, but he can’t decide if it’s going to be because of the kids or because of him. 

Mike hears Amelia first, heels clicking on pavement beside a tall, slim figure in lycra and a pair of matching Nike trainers. He feels his lungs burn in his chest when the kids go quiet and suddenly shy, huddled around him, and feels enormously stupid for being nervous about this. 

“Tryouts were a month ago,” he says casually when Ginny and Amelia are within earshot.

Amelia looks surprised, but Ginny Baker’s head whips up from where she’s staring at the ground and – Jesus, she’s apparently nervous about this, too. She’s twenty-five, but she looks unbelievably young to Mike, especially when her mouth wavers into a grin when she sees the kids hanging around Mike. “Think you can give me a chance anyway?”

Without looking from her face, Mike shrugs. “What do the rest of you all think?”

A collective roar in the affirmative is his only answer as the team tears away from him and rush toward Ginny. Practice turns to pandemonium for no less than forty minutes. A few parents turn up toward the end to catch a glimpse of the superstar player making an appearance, and it isn’t until Mike gets the kids running through some practice drills that he gets a chance to say anything at all to Ginny.

He folds his arms and watches throwing practice. “I’d apologize, but I can’t really stop them when they get excited like that.”

“It’s fine,” Ginny shrugs, adjusting her glove in her hand. Mike notices that it’s well-worn. He also notices it’s not the same branded Nike glove she uses during games. “They’re kids. I’ve gotten used to it.” 

That seems like a lie, which makes Mike wonder what she’s doing here anyway. So, he asks in his coach voice, “What is it you’re hoping to get out of this, Baker?” 

Her head snaps up instantly and then her face softens belatedly into a smile. He wonders if she even knows what she’s doing here, if she knows what she’s doing with her life at all. But then, Mike was engaged at twenty-five and look how that turned out.

“I don’t know,” she admits at last. “Give back to the community. Pitch a fastball to someone who isn’t going to bump up my ERA every other inning.”

“I wouldn’t be sure of that.” Mike bumps his elbow against hers, and is embarrassed to realize that her surprised laugh is the infectious, bright kind. 

He’s long since learned that he can put people at ease if he’s got a good joke at the ready, if he can play it casual until they relax. It was one of the things Rachel had brought up in counseling, that Mike always seemed like he wasn’t taking the world seriously, that he could make everybody feel like their friend until they realized they knew literally nothing about him.

The thought makes him uncomfortable, so Mike rolls his shoulders back. “Well, as long as you promise not to teach them a curve just yet, I think we’ll get along just fine together.” 

Her mouth twitches to a half-smile. “No need to blow their chances of taking my job one day,” she suggests too brightly, bumping her elbow back against his. “Ready to get to work, coach?” 

“Yeah,” says Mike to her back, because she’s already striding out across the field to the short line of kids who prefer to pitch. Because he's anything but ready for this. He hears Amelia stirring behind him, the snap of her purse when she slides her smartphone back into it.

“Do you see what I mean?” she asks, folding her slim arms and watching Ginny go.

Mike looks down at her, then back toward Ginny. She was right: Ginny isn’t doing this for the press. He just doesn’t know why she’s doing it, maybe any more than he knows why he does it himself. Maybe it doesn’t matter. 

“Yeah,” he says finally, following after her with long paces. He looks back over his shoulder to Amelia when he breaks into a jog. “Make sure she’s on time next week, though.”

*

Ginny is on time the next week, but Amelia isn’t there. She stays late with a couple of the kids, letting them hang around her knees and ask her a million questions. Then she’s off in Peoria for spring training, although she turns up for their first game and nearly causes an uproar in the little park when she stands next to Mike, a little like she expects him to hide her from a swarm of adulation.

She’s a natural. It’s obvious from everything she does that Ginny has lived and breathed baseball for years, which is no surprise to Mike. She wouldn’t be the first woman in the majors if she weren’t obsessively devoted to the sport, not in the world they live in. What _is_ a surprise is that she’s really good with the kids, patient and smiling, even when none of them are really paying attention. The kids are a month into their twelve-week season by the time the regular season starts for her, but she doesn’t bring any of that tension with her to practice.

More than anything, Mike works well with her.

And, although their time together is spent almost exclusively on coaching, dusting off uniforms and drilling in some sense of teamwork, Mike starts to get the feeling that she’s making an effort to let him get to know her, even when he’s trying to keep some perspective on this. What perspective he _can_ keep when the star of the Padres is talking ERAs with him while they rearrange three-quarter size bats.

Sometime after that first, weird month, Ginny relaxes into joking with him, stops making him feel like he’s getting Ginny Baker™, and more like he’s getting Ginny, the human being who also happens to play baseball. He’s always had the impression that she’s hard working from her public persona, but it’s a distant echo of the real thing. Actual Ginny stumbles through small talk, but she’s effusive in real conversation, all her opinions and thoughts bubbling up between laughs. 

Out in his actual life, the one where he stares at spreadsheets all day long, Mike tries to keep some distance between himself and pretty much everyone else. He even does it on the rare occasions he lets his friends set him up on blind dates, like they’re desperate to get him paired off again or the divorce will rub off. 

If he’s honest, and Mike thinks that he’s brutally honest with himself, he’s afraid that if he talks about himself with people he barely knows, he’ll have to talk about Rachel, her affair and their divorce. And then that will lead like Alice’s rabbit hole right into the root-deep, gnawing fear that he’s disposable, that if he never gives anything up, he never loses anything when it all eventually comes apart.

But with Ginny, they already have baseball as a comfortable touchpoint between them. He finds out she reads his blog on the road, which is a little embarrassing, and she doesn’t mind talking about life in the spotlight. Compared to the Ginny Baker story, his issues with his mom and dad are really nothing. Sometimes, they speculate what life would have been like if things had been a little different, if Ginny were a normal person, or if Mike had the talent or the opportunity to play in the show.

It occurs to him in a flash of discomfort that Mike actually _likes_ her. 

He likes her a lot more than he thought he would, and probably more than he really should. He likes the way she covers her mouth when she laughs too boldly, two identical dimples popping on her cheeks when she does. He likes when she makes one bad joke or another, that she’s always ready with something witty to shoot back at him. He likes her more than he likes most everyone else these days.

And, like always, Mike is in too deep before he even realizes what’s happened. It’s an old pattern, where he pretends not to notice when he’s getting to close to someone until he wakes up one morning and catches himself thinking about her, what they might talk about the next time they see each other. That’s how he knows he’s in trouble, when he starts _rationalizing_ it.

“I’d kind of forgotten it was like this,” she says, sometime in the second month, when they take the kids to the batting cages for a special field trip between games. Her fingers twist her old glove in her hands, tracing the seams with a familiar touch. If he had to guess, Mike would say it’s her old glove, the one from before the big Nike deal. 

“What?” he asks absently, forcing himself to look up from her hands and the glove. He’s supposed to be watching the kids, making sure none of them get hurt by machines spitting balls at them.

Ginny waves absently at the kids, tilting her head to the side a little to watch a little closer. “Playing baseball,” she says cryptically, springing forward to help one of the girls correct her stance. 

Mike doesn’t get to ask her about it again until the kids are all safely packed off on their way home. It’s just the two of them, something he’s not sure has ever happened before now. He gestures to the batting cages. “Any interest?”

“In showing you up?” she grins, holding out a bat to him. “I mean, if you insist, Lawson.”

That, he thinks when he takes it from her and steadies himself in the cage, is _exactly_ where the problem is between them. “I’ve seen your batting average,” he says, adjusting his helmet before he starts swinging.

Ginny leans back with her eyebrows racing up her forehead, watching quietly for a few minutes. “You aren’t bad,” she says thoughtfully, like she’s actually considering it. “You’ve got really good form.” 

For about half a second, Mike feels a giddy swooping sensation, like he’s thrilled to find that he can impress a twenty-five year old woman with batting skills twenty years out of practice. Then he remembers that she’s probably being nice, that the reality is that Ginny Baker is a genuinely nice person. Or, at least one who would hate to be rude. 

He scoffs and pauses the machine, hands the bat off to her, explaining, “I played a little as a kid.” 

“You’re being modest,” she remarks firmly, adjusting her own helmet and staring down the machine. “I know a bit about hitters. You’re a little better than a Little League hitter.” It pitches hard and straight. Ginny catches it square and sends it soaring high and deep before the netting catches it. 

“Would have been a double, easy,” Mike remarks lightly, adjusting his gloves so he has something to do with his hands while she’s batting. 

Ginny actually grins at him over her shoulder, swirling the end of the bat in little circles before she swings again. “Anyone can bat fine in a cage.” Another swing, the satisfying sound of wood striking leather. “Even I could bat a thousand if I hit in a cage.”

He takes the bat from her when she pauses, turns away from it. “Well, when you say it like that, it’s hard to take your compliments seriously.” Her eyes go wide, half an apology already on her lips when Mike waves it off with a bark of laughter. “It’s fine. Really. I’m an economist and a Little League coach, I can’t bat .310 against Ginny Baker, too.” 

“You could give it a try sometime.” Ginny elbows him, turning her body toward him and – _fuck._ Jesus, even at his age and out of practice as he is, Mike knows flirting when he sees it. 

“Yeah, right.” He clears his throat and looks back to the machine with his hand outstretched toward the switch. The next five balls come at him hard and fast and Mike shoves all his pent up anxiety into a series of good, powerful hits. 

When he looks up at Ginny between them, he sees her eyes following him, her lip pulled between her teeth. Mike’s heart actually skips a beat. For the first time, he wishes he’d bought a red hot convertible and a gym membership for his post-divorce crisis instead of taking up coaching. He wishes he’d moved on with his life after college, that baseball hadn’t been the only thing that made him feel connected to his dad, that he’d refused when Amelia showed up.

He tears his eyes away, forces himself not to think, focuses on the next ball.

After a few minutes of just the sound of the cages, Ginny tucks one ankle behind the other, arms crossed. “You play golf?” she asks thoughtfully.

Mike looks up, stops the machine. “Honestly? Only the miniature kind.”

She laughs, throwing her loose hair back, two perfect, identical dimples on either side of her mouth. “I was going to say, maybe we could do something that isn’t baseball.”

Yeah, Mike thinks instantly, that seems like a terrible idea. Something about the playful gleam in her eyes, the way he can’t stop himself from half a grin back at her. But instead of demuring because she’s the hottest star in baseball and he’s… well, he’s just _Mike Lawson_. 

Instead of doing that, holds out the bat to her and starts pulling off his gloves. “What else have you got in mind?”

*

But they don’t really do anything about it. Mike goes home after the night in the batting cages and coaches himself through what he’ll say the next time he sees Ginny. Or maybe he won’t say anything at all, because the longer it takes for that to happen, the more sure he is that he was wrong. The idea of Ginny flirting with him is preposterous, anyway.

In the end, he doesn’t say anything about it at all, deciding that if Ginny’s not just flirting to pass the time, she’ll say something on her own. He thinks it’s better they keep baseball as a buffer between them, anyway. 

And, anyway, by the time May rolls around, summer tournaments and the end of school around the corner, the season is picking up for her and Mike’s busy preparing a conference paper. The kids don’t do bad, finishing second in their tournament. Mike gets a load of coffee cards and handwritten thank you notes at the end of the season, along with a few polite requests to pass on identical cards to Ginny. He promises to do just that, but privately tells himself not to hold his breath. Ginny has a baseball career to focus on, and anyway, she’s only volunteering for the one season. He has her cell phone number and she texts him regularly, even when Mike doesn’t always text back, but he’s not even sure what he’d say. Something like, ‘Hey, I have some cards for you, and also were you seriously flirting with me?’ The idea is laughable.

 _Thanks for all the help this season,_ he finally texts one night from his couch, watching the Padres get crushed by the Marlins. _Hope you got what you were hoping for out of it._

Her answer comes about an hour after the game, apparently after she’s finished in the clubhouse. _yeah, i did. too bad it doesn’t help my actual ERA, though_

Mike stares at his phone for a long time, trying to decide what he could possibly write next. It’s weird enough texting with the baseball star whose rookie card he has carefully sleeved and displayed on his bookshelf. There’s no baseball to act as a buffer now that the season’s over. Mike will go back to his regular life, and so will Ginny. He shouldn’t read too much into a couple months of light flirting. It’s the responsible thing to do.

 _You ever decide if you wanted to go golfing?_ he writes after he brushes his teeth, hesitating over the screen, painfully aware that he’s making a mistake. Mike goes to bed telling himself that Ginny won’t think twice about telling him where he stands if he’s got the wrong end of things. That, or she won’t answer, and it’s still back to regular business. 

She answers the next morning, though. _I thought you might suck at golf,_ the message says. Then, a minute later, _Why don’t we get a beer instead?_

Right, thinks Mike, and actually laughs at himself. He’ll just go get a beer with Ginny Baker, right after she finishes her midday game and he writes this fucking abstract. _Okay, sure,_ he writes, and hopes he doesn’t sound too earnest, or too sarcastic when he adds, _Let me know when you can fit me in._

*

And that’s that.

Mike doesn’t even think that she might really be serious, spends an expansive amount of time convincing himself she’s not. But even in a few months, thinking about Ginny has become a strange fixture in Mike’s life, something that doesn’t fit with blogging and conference travel, weekend runs on the beach and worrying about whether or not he’s going to find a sitter for Chewie while he’s gone.

There was a fluff piece in the papers about Ginny volunteering with the team back in April. Even Rachel’s show picked it up, but Amelia provided a few approved pictures of Ginny with the kids. No one actually knows that it was Mike’s team, which leaves him with exactly no one to talk to about this. Then the news cycle moved on, and it’s only Mike who’s left lingering on those months with Ginny. Only he’s thinking about her charming laugh, whether she might have thought he was flirting with her, too. 

_No one has to know,_ he tries arguing with himself when he decides that idle fantasy isn’t anything worth getting worked up about. It’s not like he’s hurting anyone wondering if he missed a sign somewhere. He doesn’t even think to question it again, except maybe to bitterly reflect that he’s rationalizing something that might not be all that great for him in practice. 

Eventually, normal life catches up to him. It’s just that Mike’s normal life isn’t the same as it was before, even though he decides that he’s going to make peace with moving on. 

It’s not on purpose, running into Ginny, which is the first thing he thinks when it happens. He didn’t even put together that his conference was in DC the same week as the All-Star game when the roster was announced and Ginny was named to the National League team. At least, he didn’t put it together in anything more than the abstract sense that Ginny exists out in roughly the same world he lives out his normal life in.

He’s waiting for his flight in the airport, absently scrolling through some trade rumors on his phone when he hears her say his name somewhere above him. Her voice is bright and incredulous. A few people look up, mouths open, and Mike spends fifteen seconds wondering if he planned this somehow, deeply self-conscious of how this would look if he weren’t obviously surprised to see her.

“Mike?” she repeats, pulling her headphones down around her neck and adjusting her duffel bag on her shoulder. Ginny points past his shoulder to the ticket counter. “You’re going to DC?” 

“Um,” he gurgles articulately, sitting up straight and rubbing his damp palms down the front of his jeans. Just in case he was wrong the first three times he checked the gate number, he looks back at the ticket counter, then shakes his head. “Actually – yeah. I have a conference. I completely forgot the game was in DC this week.”

“Cool,” Ginny says, grinning broadly at him and waving her hand at the empty seat on his right. “Mind if I sit with you?”

He can’t help the stupid smile on his face when she flops heavily into the thinly cushioned chair. “Only if you can keep the fan club at bay,” he says, hoping he sounds casual and not at all like the kind of weird guy who’s been thinking about her more than the average dude in San Diego lately.

“Whatever,” Ginny giggles, elbowing his arm off the rest and digging her phone out of the pocket of her hoodie.

They chat lightly about the game and his conference, the Padres catcher who was going to fly in with Ginny, but backed out of the game at the last minute. Ten minutes before boarding, Ginny excuses herself to go to the ticket counter for a few minutes and comes back holding a freshly-printed ticket. 

“Seat next to you was open,” she explains cheerfully, tucking herself back into her chair with a self-satisfied look. 

“Did you use your star power to get a seat in coach with me?” he asks incredulously, and suddenly his heart’s going again. 

“Yep,” she says, with an extra emphasis on the last syllable, peering over at him. “I mean, since you couldn’t make time for a beer with me.” 

“Hey now,” Mike protests, and hopes that he isn’t actually blushing. His ears feel hot. “I don’t get Mondays and Thursdays off, and _your_ job is even less friendly about time off than mine.”

“Price of fame. I’ll take what I can get from you, Lawson,” Ginny says brightly, as if she’s the one who’s lucky to be around him. 

A few people recognize her and Ginny gamely signs a few autographs before boarding starts. Mike grabs one of her bags for her, trying to be polite, even though he’s reasonably certain Ginny can bench twice what he can. She looks him over quickly, her mouth twisting in a curious smile that doesn’t entirely fade when they trudge down the jetway and onto the plane. 

Ginny swings into their row to take the window seat and beams up at him while Mike shoves his bag above them. “It’s a long flight,” she says cheerfully when he sits in the seat next to her, becoming abruptly aware how close they are. 

“Yeah,” he agrees faintly, adjusting the belt around his waist and trying not to focus too much on her warm leg, shrink-wrapped in lycra, pressing against his. When Mike finally looks up again, she’s watching him with that same thoughtful expression as before. 

“What?” he asks, fumbling to switch off his phone, but Ginny shrugs it off and pulls the sleeves of her sweatshirt down to cover most of her hands.

“Nothing,” says Ginny, chewing nervously on her lip while the flight attendants walk through the cabin. “I sometimes get a little nervous flying. Weird, right?”

Mike demurs on that, even though he knows Ginny does plenty of flying for the team, because his stomach contracts with nerves of his own. They’re quiet through the safety demonstration and takeoff, but after the seatbelt light goes off, Ginny leans against the window and looks at him purposefully.

“So, you really were too busy to hang out, weren’t you?” she asks bluntly, in a voice that suggests it’s not so much a question as a blanket statement of her surprise.

He’s just pulled out his tablet, planning to read through some of the papers for the conference before he gets there, but Mike looks up at her, feeling his whole forehead wrinkle up in surprise. “Did I say something that made you think I was blowing you off?”

“Well,” begins Ginny, drawing the word across a few syllables, stealing a few seconds to think about what she’s going to say. “I know you were doing this. I just thought–”

“That I didn’t want to make time for _Ginny Baker_ when she wanted to hang out?” It’s not true, but it’s not _wrong_ , either. Mike laughs, cuts it off when the woman sitting adjacent to them shoots him a dirty look over her shoulder. “When you put it like that, the conference excuse sounds pretty pathetic, actually.” 

Her eyebrows jump sharply, but she’s obviously pleased, so it’s probably safe to conclude that Ginny isn’t actually upset at him. “Well, we’re here now,” she says, and her whole body seems to smooth out as she relaxes. Her knee touches his again. It seems like it’s on purpose this time.

They talk off and on through the flight, about the kids on the team and her last few starts. Ginny shares a bag of chocolate trail mix with him, talking animatedly with both hands when she tells him stories about the clubhouse, about Sunday dinners at her old manager’s house. Mike finds that she’s a thoughtful listener, sometimes threading the conversation back to things they haven’t talked about in months. She asks questions about his life after the divorce, about coaching, even about Chewie, although Mike is sure he can’t have mentioned his dog more than once or twice over a few months.

By the time the pilot crackles over their heads, letting them know they’re coming in to land, it feels like they’ve only just gotten on board. Mike knows far more about the mundane details about Ginny’s life, and she keeps looking at him with a half smile when she tucks her hair back. 

Well, fine, Mike is pretty transparent, and he likes her. He doesn’t mind sharing himself with her, even with the nagging sense he sometimes gets that his life wasn’t supposed to be like this. That maybe he’d have been something else, if something somewhere hadn’t gone the way it did. 

What keeps nagging at him as they deplane is something else, though. 

Because now Mike knows plenty about Ginny, the person, he’s not sure it matters why she came dancing into his life in the first place. Maybe Ginny got nostalgic for her youth, maybe she really wanted to help a Little League team, maybe a PR rep told her it would help her image. But she keeps coming back, is the thing. Mike’s not sure why it matters so much to know _why_. It could be she likes his company just as well as he likes hers. It just _feels_ like it should be more important than that.

But then Ginny extracts a promise that they’ll get together in the city between her MLB appearances and his work duties. “A beer, Mike,” is all she says to him, half a promise, waving over her shoulder and disappearing into an Uber. 

“Yeah,” Mike answers to no one at all, left staring after her with his nagging thoughts and the faint impression of her laughter echoing in his ears for hours after.

*

She’s the one to text him first, about twenty minutes after the official broadcast of the Home Run Derby ends with Livan Duarte beating out the rest of the hitters by five homers and a bat flip. Mike’s already drafting his next blog post about it in his head when his phone dings insistently.

_did you see me on tv? ;)_

He writes back instantly, stopping dead in the center of a hall in the convention center with his bag half-slung over his shoulder: _No._

It’s flagrantly untrue, and he’s sure Ginny knows it, too. Not just because he hasn’t missed any part of the All-Star festivities since he was in college, but because he’s pretty sure she knows that he was watching. 

_you’re a shitty liar, Lawson,_ she writes back. _are you going to watch me tomorrow?_

Mike is about to answer something sharp and witty when he stops himself, realizes that she can’t be texting him from the locker room, probably still wearing her uniform and cleats, for absolutely nothing. 

_How about dinner tonight, instead?_

Ginny’s a lot longer responding this time, but then his phone buzzes in his hand and Mike swipes it open nervously. 

_Deal. Give me a chance to get changed._

Mike ends up making a reservation for two at a restaurant a couple miles from the ballpark, away from the crowds of people streaming out into the neighborhood. He considers calling them up to let them know who’s coming, wonders if this is something that Ginny ever does back in San Diego. 

He decides against it in the end, just adds a note for the restaurant asking for a quiet table and shoots Ginny a text with the address and time. Then he showers in his hotel room, stares at his suit bag for ten minutes before deciding that he’s better off in jeans and a blazer. 

It’s been so long since Mike was actually interested in anyone that he’s not even really sure what he’s supposed to be doing. He can’t remember feeling this nervous about any of the dates he’s been on since the divorce. Showered and clean clothes seems like a bare effort, but anything more feels like it would be trying too hard. 

Even after all that, he’s the first one at the restaurant, although only by a few minutes. Ginny texts him when he’s looking down the narrow bar toward the rest of the restaurant and his pulse spikes in his chest, pounding blood through his eardrums. He’s a mess, but there isn’t time for a whisky to smooth his jacked up nerves, so he just switches between leaning against the stone wall and pacing between the host stand and little garden in front of the converted carriage house. 

A car slows to a stop in front of the restaurant, but its passenger is a few, long seconds before they climb out. Mike knows that it’s Ginny before she steps up onto the sidewalk, sweeping a few curls away from her face. 

Shortly after she was called up in 2016, Ginny signed an exclusive deal with Nike, press party and all. Mike remembers seeing the pictures from that party, Ginny in a crimson dress all the way to the floor. But aside from that faint memory, maybe the ESPN pictures later that year, he’s only ever seen her in her uniform or in some kind of athletic gear or another. It seemed to suit her, not just the part of her that’s a ballplayer, but the parts she’s shown him off the field, too. 

Tonight, though, she’s wearing a short, tight sheath dress in a buttery yellow, a pair of strappy heels that make her legs look a mile long, and Mike forgets that he’s supposed to breathe. 

She gives him a quick wink and waves to her driver, striding toward him like she’s on a catwalk instead of a sidewalk. The smell of her soap hits Mike like he’s been clocked on the side of the head, and it’s like he’s swimming upstream, barely keeping his head above water.

“Thanks for waiting for me,” she says, her voice low and barely audible over the sound of cars a few streets over. Her eyes sweep from his feet to his face in a slow, obvious motion, her mouth ticking upward. 

“God, you clean up,” Ginny says at last, catching Mike’s shoulder with her hand and turning him a little so she can see the back of his jacket. “Is this what you look like when you’re not wearing a baseball cap and covered in dirt?”

“Every day of the week,” he says, reaching behind his head to scratch at his reddening neck. Suddenly this feels decidedly date-like, instead of a casual meeting for drinks like he does with colleagues and friends at least three times a month. “Why don’t we–”

“Go inside,” Ginny provides and glides ahead of him, bouncing in spite of her heels. Mike’s hand floats toward her lower back because he’s pretty sure that’s the polite thing to do. At least, it would be if this were a date, he thinks. He can see the dewy gleam of sweat clinging to the back of her neck, just under a spray of faintly-damp, pinned curls. He forces himself not to look any lower than her waist, letting himself be enchanted by the contrast of her dress against the curve of her brown shoulder, instead.

Dinner passes easily, although Mike still can’t shake the dizzying idea that Ginny is actually encouraging the idea that it’s a lot more than a couple friends in town at the same time. Her knees bump against his under the table and at least once, she grabs his forearm when she laughs loudly at some story, which he completely forgets when he stares at her. 

“This was a good idea,” she says when it’s just the two of them and their drinks, leaning toward him over the table, her slim fingers tracing circles on her glass. “I forgot it could be fun to go out like this.”

“We can do it again back in San Diego,” Mike offers, hoping he can make himself sound casual, not like he’s asking her on another date. _God,_ he hopes this isn’t only in his head.

“For real this time?” At his guilty expression, Ginny waves off another fit of giggles and explains, “I don’t get out much in San Diego. The whole Ginny Baker, first woman in baseball thing puts a damper on going out with people.”

“No one’s going to recognize you like that,” Mike says instantly, frowning at himself when he realizes what he’s said. “I mean – you don’t normally look like that.”

“I know what you mean,” Ginny says, lifting her glass and peering at him over the edge with an impish look in her eyes. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to give you shit about it for the rest of forever.”

“Okay,” laughs Mike. The room is quieter now that most of the diners have left, leaving the two of them in a soft-lit corner. “Like you weren’t checking me out when you got here, too.” 

Ginny’s eyes widen and she nearly chokes on her drink. “You _were_ checking me out!” she pronounces gleefully, waving her finger at him.

He ducks his head and silently signals for the check. “Does the MLB do some kind of afterparty, is that what the dress was for?” 

This time, it’s Ginny who blushes a little at him. “I didn’t actually pack it. I went shopping.” 

For about half a minute, Mike tries to imagine Ginny going shopping for a dress in the time between their texts and now. He tries to imagine her looking for something to wear, to go out with him, choosing a tight sheath that clings to every detail of her body. “Today?” he asks before drinking from his glass as an obvious distraction.

She shrugs, “After I left the airport on Sunday.”

Right. When it might have just been beers. When Ginny didn’t know if he’d have time to see her in DC at all. Mike scrubs the heel of his hand over his eye, takes a tight breath and holds it until it burns in his chest.

“Ginny,” he says, lowering his voice so no one can hear but her. This whole thing is insane, like something he dreamed up. Like he’s going to wake up in his bed back in San Diego and discover the last few months have been some sort of mirage from being desperately lonely. But the world hasn’t felt this clear to him in years, like the marine layer burning off the city under the heat of a mid-morning sun. “I’m not imagining this, right?”

“Mike,” Ginny interrupts, leans in close. Her eyelashes are a long, black veil around her eyes, wide and sparkling. She pulls the edge of her lip between her teeth and lays her fingertips between his on the table. “Come on.”

He’s not sure what else there is to say. They pay the bill and take a cab to Mike’s hotel, which is closer. “Besides,” Ginny breathes into his ear when she suggests it, her entire side pressed up against his. She’s close enough he thinks he can feel her pulse racing in time with his. “My hotel is crawling with baseball players.”

And sure enough, no one even looks twice at them when they cross the lobby of his hotel. There’s no one in the gilded elevator when Ginny presses Mike up against the wall, rocking forward and crushing her lips against his on the ride up. It takes him a full beat to catch on, and then his hands ghost down the taut sides of her body, drawing her flush against him, deep enough that he could drown in her. 

Behind them, the doors chime and Mike staggers out with her giggling shape in his arms. He fumbles with the key to his room, feeling as though the whole world is sharpening to a point around her when she falls through the door after him. 

He switches on the lamp and hears himself ask, “You’re sure you want to do this?”

“Yes.” Ginny steps out of her shoes and holds out her hands to him.

She couldn’t be any clearer than that, and so Mike goes to her. His heart beats too fast when she hooks her fingers in his belt, pulls him toward his bed, and he asks, “Why?” 

A peal of laughter echoes in the room. “I like you,” Ginny says, as if that’s explanation enough. Probably it is, in the way these things normally go. She unbuckles his belt and goes straight for the button on his jeans. “I think you’re as into me as I’m into you. That’s all, Mike.”

The zipper to her dress sticks a little, stiff and new, but the two of them manage to get it down without ruining the dress. Mike kicks off his shoes and jeans and starts on his shirt when he finds Ginny staring at him, her mouth half-open. Ginny is. Swallowing back a sudden knot of self-awareness, Mike reaches out for her, cups her cheek in his hand and presses his mouth against hers. His thumb traces the curve of her cheek, from her cheekbone to the precise spot where her dimples appear when she laughs.

“Ready?” he asks, resting his forehead against hers and willing himself to keep it together.

Ginny nods immediately, tosses her dress to the side and and hooks her thumbs under her bra, and Mike is abruptly aware that _he_ might not be ready for this. Sure, he’s seen her Body Issue pictures, back when she was a vague abstract instead of somebody he knows, is apparently going to know a _lot_ more intimately than that. The real deal is a lot more than a few artsy pictures in a magazine photoshoot. 

There’s the cut of her abdominal muscles, stretching in a clean line between the band of her bra and her matching boyshorts. Her arms, well-muscled and lean, arc over her head, her hair bouncing wildly with every movement. Even the healed over crescent scar on her right elbow, obvious and stark against miles of softly-scented brown skin, is perfect to him. 

Mike stares at her openly, his fingertips suddenly feeling heavy and numb on the buttons of his shirt. The immediacy of this hits him like a load of bricks, where they are and what they’re doing. _Who_ they are. Or, rather, who he is and what he thinks he’s doing with her.

“Isn’t this going to put you off your game tomorrow?” he asks stupidly and peels off his shirt. He can’t think straight when she’s this close, except that she must be making a mistake.

“Not really,” she smirks, reaching back to unhook her bra. Mike forgets to breathe for a few seconds before settling on the idea that if Ginny is sure she wants to do this, he’s sure he wants it to be as good as it can be for her. 

“Let me do that,” he says, earning himself the surprise of an uncharacteristically shy smile from her. 

When she nods, he reaches around her with one arm, sucking down a sharp breath when her lace-covered breasts brush against his now bare chest. Ginny looks up at him through her eyelashes, blinks quickly with unguarded arousal when Mike unhooks her bra and lowers the straps from her shoulders with deliberate focus. 

On a whim, he lays a string of open-mouthed kisses down her neck, to her shoulder, the soft skin like silk over the hard layer of well-formed muscles. Ginny sighs, a puff of warm air past his ear that goes straight to his dick like a bolt of lightning. It might be he's been hard since she took his hand in the restaurant, but suddenly he's intolerably, desperately so. 

When his mouth goes lower, skirting the swell of her breast, Ginny shudders. Her fingers tug gently at his hair, pulling him toward the bed. “God, I want to climb you like a mountain.”

Mike sits down on the edge of the bed hard, coiling his arm around to hold her close. “I'm not sure I can do that,” he breathes into her neck. The idea is outrageously attractive, though. Mike would be happy to injure himself just trying to keep up with her. 

But he also knows he’ll live the rest of his life thinking about this moment. Wherever this goes in the morning, whatever it will mean back in the context of their separate, aggressively real lives, it feels like it will be defined by what he does right now. Getting it right. That's about all he can aspire to.

“Come up here,” he instructs, pulling her over him. “Come on.”

Ginny comes. “I didn’t think you were so delicate,” she teases, reaching between them and palming his cock. She asks, “Are you going to be able to handle this?” A smile ghosts over her mouth.

Mike squeezes his eyes shut, allows himself to take a single breath before he nods at her with the sense of something final. Something meaningful that’s about to shift everything around him.

“Yeah,” he answers, opening his eyes again. The lamplight forms a halo around her head, glowing through the haze of her curls. Mike reaches up and pulls her down toward him, and doesn’t say anything else.

*

It’s half-past six when the phone beside Mike’s bed screeches to life, and it takes him a few long seconds to remember that he’d actually asked for the wake-up calls when he checked in. Ginny stirs beside him, coiled up with the blankets clutched in both hands and her face half-shrouded by her hair.

“What was that?” she mumbles, blinking sleepily at him. 

“It’s the real world calling.” Mike drops the phone back into the cradle and rolls toward her. He still feels a little dizzy and weak-limbed from the night before. “Fuck the real world.”

Ginny giggles at that, lazily pulling at him until he scoots closer under the sheets. Mike swallows the instant upswell of affection he feels for her when her eyes meet his and she smiles warmly. Her fingertips are on his chest, tracing the swirls of hair there, then down the lines of his biceps and back up again. For a completely insane second, Mike wonders if he has the time or the energy to go again with her. Assuming he didn’t throw his back out the night before. 

“Hey,” she says after a long time, curling into his arms. She traces a line back over his chest and up to his beard. “The real world has its merits.” 

“Tell me one,” Mike challenges, mostly because there’s nothing he wants more than to keep it like this forever. 

Ginny’s face softens. “I met you out in it.”

“Ugh,” Mike groans, barely able to keep from laughing when Ginny’s face cracks into a smile. “I guess we’ll have to face it sooner or later.” 

“You have to give a paper, and I’ll have to be at the ballpark soon,” she sighs as Mike turns his nose into her hair and inhales the soft, rich smell there. She smells like sex and sleep, only the faintest echo of whatever it is she washes her hair with remaining.

“We’re really nailing this personal responsibility thing,” he laughs, and lets it go quiet between them.

Like the night before, the world feels clear and sharp again. Golden light filters through the windows and across the blankets, casting a soft glow on her warm skin. He hooks his forefinger under her chin, lets her sink forward into him before he kisses her again.

“Hey,” she says at last, low and quiet. “Are you ready for all of – all of this?” 

Mike tries to imagine a life with Ginny. A life in the spotlight. Mike isn’t naive enough to assume her fame will never be a problem for them. He knows what it’ll look like, knows that it will be hard to manage. He'll miss her more often than not.

And then on the flip: seeing all her games and meeting her outside the players’ bus after roadtrips. Off-seasons and training in Arizona. Mike can’t imagine having a normal life at all after this, a life that isn't centered around a baseball diamond, the one thing that’s been the one constant, the magnetic center of his life. 

“No,” he admits. Ginny watches him carefully, sunshine breaking in her eyes when he adds, “But I’m ready to give it a try.”


End file.
